The decision sparked demonstrations in Israel, and one Nobel judge resigned in protest, arguing that Arafat's violent past disqualified him.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it "one of the low points of the Nobel Prize" in a 2002 interview.

The Nobel committee's secretary, Geir Lundestad, told the Boston Globe: "The Nobel Prize isn't the granting of sainthood. There have been many winners with dark things about their past, but they have managed to raise themselves above them."

Six Nobel laureates have declined the prize, including three German scientists who were ordered not to accept the award at the beginning of the Second World War.

Jean Paul Sartre, the existentialist French philosopher and writer, became the first person to voluntarily refuse the prize in 1964. According to a public statement, Sartre said he had a policy of not accepting public honours and he did not mean to slight the Nobel Foundation.